Legends -- Pyrenees; Pyrenees -- Description and travel; Pyrenees -- History
It was decided that a cart must be procured to remove the treasure, and
lots were cast as to who was to remain on the tumulus, whilst the other
two returned to Pau for a cart. The lot fell on Pierre, and the others
departed.
Evening had settled down when they returned with a vehicle drawn by two
oxen. Jacques and Baptiste discerned a dark figure on the mound, which
they assumed to be that of their companion left to guard the treasure.
Then, mounting the tumulus, they asked whether any one had been there
during their absence. The dark figure said, “Look up!” The men turned,
the figure threw back his cloak, and they knew it was the devil, horns
and hoof complete. Before they could recover from their astonishment
and terror, with a switch of his tail he had whisked them into the
cart. He mounted himself, and instantly the oxen--their own oxen--rose
in the air with the vehicle, wheeled thrice about the mound, and then
suddenly descended, carrying cart, men, and Satan into the pit. The
earth closed over them and they were seen no more. Only Pierre lived to
tell the tale. At the first appearance of the Evil One he had crossed
himself. He was flung from the tumulus, and lay sprawling and blessing
himself till after his comrades had vanished.
Nay may easily be visited, as it is on the main road to Tarbes. It has
a church of the fifteenth century, and the frontage of a Renaissance
house in which Jeanne d’Albret delighted to reside.
Farther on is Coarraze, where are the remains of the château in
which Henri Quatre spent his early boyhood. Only the tower and the
portal are of the sixteenth century, the rest is a structure raised
in the eighteenth century. Over the doorway may be read the Spanish
inscription: “Lo que ha de ser no puede fallar.”
The church is early and fortified. The terrace in front of the castle
commands a beautiful and extensive prospect of the Pyrenees in their
ever-changing tints and lights and shades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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